Changing Horizons in Geography Education - HERODOT Network ...

Geographical studies at the faculty have shown an increase in popularity. At thebeginning of the 1990’s there were approximately 80 students a year, now there areabout two hundred. Though the characteristics of applicants are well known due tothe obligatory entrance exams, the professional assertion of geography graduates isrelatively unknown, though they are successful. Professional success may reflect onthe quality and conception of the study programmes, therefore a wide questionnairesurvey among graduates from geographical disciplines was done in 2004. For thiscontribution we only present the results of some of the most interesting questions.Methodology of the surveyA survey on the professional success of graduates is often part of a department’s selfevaluation.In the Czech Republic surveys have taken place at Masaryk’s Universityin Brno from 1997–2002, at South-Bohemian University from 2002–2003 and therehas been older research in author’s department (Bičík and Řezníčková 1998). In a newsurvey four hundred geography graduates from years 1998–2004 were addressed bye-mail and classical mail and we received 183 filled in questionnaires via the websiteor mail. The main aims of whole research were to identify the professional trajectoryof our graduates, their present position and, of course, their opinion about qualityof preparation for their profession by the faculty. Below half of the questionnaires(43%,) were answered by graduates from the teacher training programmes and 57%were answered by professional geography graduates. 50% of respondents were men,45% women and 5% did not state. The number of respondents decreases with thenumber of years since graduation – we received only 5 filled-in questionnaires from1999 and 40 from 2004. For structure by study programme see Figure 1.Figure 1. Structure of 183 answers bygraduate’s study programmeSource: Řezníčková et al (2005)Notes: Teacher training programmes:ma-geo = maths+geography, biogeo= biology+geography, his-geo=history+geography, pt-geo = physicaltraining+geography, geo = only geography,other teach. = other teachertraining subjectProfessional geography: soggeo =social geography, reggeo = regionalgeography, physgeo = physical geographyand geoekology, cart = cartographyand GIS, demo = demography,other prof. = other professional subjectSelected results of the surveyThe majority of respondents stated there had no problem in finding jobs and mostof them started their work in the profession they had been prepared for (Table 1).157